FORAGING FOR PURPOSE
FINDING MEANING BENEATH THE SURFACE
BY ISRAEL SCHILL
Christine Gagnon, 58, is a forager, educator and founder of Uncanoonuc Foraging Company based in GOFFSTOWN, New Hampshire. What started as a childhood fascination has grown into teachING others to find their own connection to the forest.
How One Woman Found Purpose Through Mushrooms
Christine squats next to a crumbling log on the forest floor, brushing away damp leaves, dirt and a slushy mix of ice and snow. The cold air smells of decaying leaves and pine pitch dripping from the evergreens. Sunlight slices through the canopy in sharp, golden rays, illuminating strands of mycelium crawling across both fallen and standing trees. As she peels back dead bark, she pushes her glasses to the tip of her nose and narrows her eyes, studying the white, web-like threads weaving beneath the forest floor.
The river nearby rushes over rocks and fallen logs, a steady hum that eases her mind. For a moment, everything seems to slow. Christine's basket rests beside her, its two containers holding the tiniest fungi and mushrooms with care, as she savors the quiet thrill of discovery. Each mushroom isn't just food. It's a lesson, a test, a small victory in her world weighed down by constant demand.
Here, in the snowy, quiet woods of New Hampshire, Christine finds more than a walk through nature. She finds clarity and meaning.
“The biggest struggle was having the confidence and knowledge to ask the right questions and not feel dumb. There are thousands I don’t know, It’s impossible to know them all. ”
For Christine, the forest became a teacher. Every mushroom, fungi, log and trail offered a lesson in patience, discovery and quiet mastery. Over time, her personal practice led her to a larger community of foragers who share knowledge, trade discoveries and celebrate the craft of sustainable gathering. What began as a solitary pursuit eventually grew into Uncanoonuc Foraging Company, her own business that brings mushrooms and wild foods from the woods to local tables, while also teaching workshops and guiding others on walks through the forest. Through these communal and entrepreneurial connections, Christine's journey shows how curiosity can extend beyond personal fulfillment, fostering learning, collaboration and a tangible link between people and the environment around them.
Learning to Read the Forest
Christine didn't arrive in the woods as an expert. Like most foragers, it started with curiosity. From a young age, she was fascinated by the simple idea that you could walk into the woods and come back with something to eat, and that the forest, if you knew how to read it, was quietly offering food to anyone willing to pay attention. That wonder, though sitting at the back of her brain for decades, found her in adulthood, eventually pulling her toward the harder work of mastering the craft. Identification books and field guides replaced her childhood wonder with something more rigorous, and she found herself spending hours upon hours of each day studying every cap and gill. It was going to take a lot of time to master, but the forest is patient with those who are patient with it.
“It was an amazing year for mushrooms. All I wanted to do was forage, take groups on walks and teach people mushroom identificaton.”
Foraging demands a specific kind of attention that modern life rarely asks for. It requires slowing down, looking closely and sitting with uncertainty. For Christine, those early walks built something beyond fungal knowledge. They built a practice.
Over months and eventually years, she learned the ebbs and flows of the forest through the seasons. She studied which species emerge after the first warm rains of spring, which thrive in the damp rot of autumn and which can be found even when snow still blankets the ground. New Hampshire's forests, dense with maple, hemlock and birch, proved to be a rich and generous classroom
“I’VE MET PEOPLE THAT I KNOW i WOULD’VE NEVER MET OTHERWISE. IT’S LIKE A GIFT.”
— Christine Gagnon
Foraging has long carried an image of the lone voyager, someone escaping the social world, not building within it. Christine's path has challenged that notion at every turn.
Though initially using her time in the woods to escape reality, she began connecting with others drawn to the same quiet corners of the vast forests. Online communities, local meetups and foraging networks across the country opened up a web of shared knowledge. Experienced foragers share their failures, their successes and welcome those still standing at the foothills of what the mountain has to offer.
That idea of exchanging knowledge became central to how she approached her own growing role within the community. Rather than hoarding what she had learned, she leaned into sharing it by leading walks, teaching classes and helping others to continue growing her own network into something larger.
From Personal Practice to Community
CHRISTINE’S FAVORITE BITES
Disclaimer: If you do not have 100% confidence in your ability to identify a mushroom do NOT consume it. Always get a second opinion.
Interactive menu was created by Anthropic’s AI, Claude.
Building Uncanoonuc Foraging Company
Uncanoonuc Foraging Company, named for the twin peaks that rise just over 1,000 feet above Goffstown, New Hampshire, grew out of that same passion. What began as friends going on walks in the woods transitioned into a business built around connection, whether that’s to land, to food or to one another. The company sells foraged mushrooms and adjacent botanical products to local restaurants and markets, while running workshops and guided walks that teach participants to identify species safely and harvest responsibly.
Participants of her endeavors range from lifelong outdoors people to complete beginners drawn in by a curiosity they can't quite explain, similar to Christine’s origin as a forager. Uncanoonuc Foraging Company is not simply a business built on mushrooms. It is built on a particular attention to detail, to species, to season, to landscape and to the people beside her on the trail. For those who walk with Christine, the experience tends to linger. They go home with something they found themselves and, often, a different perspective to the land they pass through every day.
The mycelium Christine studies is doing something essential and invisible. It does not hurry. It simply persists and sustains. It's a lesson the forest offers freely to anyone willing to sit on a rock in the snow and look close enough. For years Christine has been building a community and network thread by thread, something that looks a lot like what she finds beneath the surface.
“I wanted to open people’s eyes to the world of mushrooms, so I decided to brand myself and put myself out there.”